


The Wolf and the Spiders

by ThatDarnLakeSiren



Category: Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018)
Genre: (Might not be too graphic but I have trouble gauging it so I tagged it anyway), Angst, Dealing with anxiety, Dimensions unraveling at the seams, Friends as Family, Getting actually bloody support, Hurt/Comfort, Kinda just doing whatever feels like it’ll work at this point, Learning how to be a Spider, Like the hero’s are the villains and vice versa compared to the norm, Magic, Magical systems and worlds, Powers vary and so do skills, Seen the movie once but hella inspired, Some... “reverse” stuff, Spider-senses are not all-encompassing, Team as Family, Transgender Characters, Violent depictions of violence, and also denial, read up a good deal more, whoops
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-19
Updated: 2019-06-19
Packaged: 2020-05-12 12:33:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,147
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19229242
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThatDarnLakeSiren/pseuds/ThatDarnLakeSiren
Summary: With a whole multiverse out there, other variations of familiar-but-different villains were bound to build their own Colliders. Caught up in the midst of such a plot, Robin struggles alongside Doc Ock to stop the villainous Spider-Man from tearing their dimension apart.As everything spirals out of control, Robin finds himself bitten by a radioactive spider and cast out into Miles dimension. It only goes downhill from here.[When you've hit rock bottom, there's no where to go but up][the ascension is never easy, but the view is always worth it at the end]





	The Wolf and the Spiders

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Burning Matches](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17282084) by [HopelesslyLost](https://archiveofourown.org/users/HopelesslyLost/pseuds/HopelesslyLost). 



Ever since the incident with the Collider, Miles had felt equal parts accomplished and lonely. He’d saved the city, his father was far loss hostile towards his Spider-Man persona, he’d gotten all the other Spiders back home safe and sound... and yet, he missed them terribly. They had been like family, and while there was no way for them visit one another safely, or even to communicate, he was grateful for the time he’d spent with them. All of them had a place in his heart. 

And as it so turned out, so in turn did they hold him close to theirs. But they weren’t about to take this forced separation sitting down. 

Miles had been in the middle of studying for a big test when a small portal had popped up in his ceiling and something resembling a wrist watch had fallen out, tumbling into his lap. 

“Read the instructions and put it on!” He heard Peni call out, before the portal shrunk and winked out of existence.

The wristwatch had paper folded and taped to the back. The watch seemed to function like a normal watch, but press a button on the side and he had access to what was essentially an inter-dimensional phone that connected him with the other Spiders. He could text with them all in one big chat room, or set up one-on-one communication. There was also an option that allowed him to essentially send out a distress signal to the others. 

The holographic keyboard took a little getting used to, and his first message was a bit garbled, but before long, Miles and Peni were texting one another back and forth. The other Spiders hadn’t received their watches just yet, but she was going to begin doing so over the next couple of days.

Additionally, Peni had worked out a way to shield them from interdimensional-decay, so they could actively visit one another, a vital feature that was already built into Miles’ watch. While the girl genius was still fine-tuning the other Spiders’ watches, they would all be able to chat and visit one another freely soon.

Tearing open inter-dimensional portals wasn’t easy, but the truly difficult part was condensing that technology safely into a watch. Ultimately, they would either need another piece of tech in order to visit one another, or Peni would have to make new watches from scratch to deal with the issue.

But even while they had to depend on Peni in order to see one another, the fact remained that, Miles was no longer cut off from his family anymore.  

* * *

Robin stared at the scene before him, then began to climb. Scurrying up a creaking metal ladder here, thin a thin metal wire there, he made his way up onto the metal catwalks.

All the while, Doc Ock and Spider-Man were throwing down, the clever doctor dodging and evading the worst of Spider-Man’s blows as she charged. She managed to catch him in her tentacles, but the Spider squirmed his way out and kicked her hard across the face.

Something skittered away from the scientist as she fell hard against the catwalk, dropping onto the levels below. Robin snatched it up as he ran past, glancing over it quickly—it looked like a rectangular remote with a large button on it, protected by a cracked plastic case. He shoved it in his pocket and kept climbing.

If he was being honest with himself, Robin had no clue what he was doing. One minute he was trying to break up an illegal summoning circle in an abandoned subway station and the next a surge of magical activity had him descending even further under New Yorks’ streets, searching for the cause of it.

He’s long-since sent his familiar running for backup, so it was only a matter of time before his family got wind of this and sent backup. He just had to stall for time, and find out as much as he could about the situation at hand. Whatever was going on here was not good.

The place he’d found himself in was, quite frankly, huge, a large cylinder-shaped device that pulsed with magic but looked largely made of tech. Whoever had designed it had incorporated elements of both, the tech half ramped up exponentially by whatever magic was being used.

Despite this, his main priority had been reaching his city’s hero and trying to assist however he could. So when he finally reached the catwalk in question, he was quick to throw himself into the fray. 

He knew he wasn’t supposed to use his magic around regular folks, but whoever had built this thing was already using magic, so there was no point in endangering himself needlessly. Within moments, he’d put himself between Spider-Man and Doc Ock, protecting himself and her with a shield built of translucent purple energy. 

Spider-Man crashed into Robins protection with a surprised cry, falling back against the walkway and making the whole thing sway. 

Doc Ock sucked in a sharp breath behind him, and he briefly turned to meet her gaze, “I’m here to help ma’am—“ was all he got out; his shield was struck with webbing, and given a rough tug. Robin was pulled along for all of two seconds before he dug in his heels and held his ground. 

With a little mental willing, the shield grew and expanded, a domed shelter surrounding himself and Doc Ock. Spider-Man crashed into it again, and Robin winced; this was already beginning to eat up a lot of his energy, and he wasn’t sure how many more blows he could sustain before it fell apart.

With time ticking down, he turned his attention to Doc Ock, kneeling beside her, “Doc! You alright?”

She groaned and pushed herself upright, looking from Robin to the shield, to Spider-Man, who was glowering in at them, then back to Robin.

“Could be better.” She admitted. “Listen, we don’t have much time. The Collider, this machine, has the potential to destroy our world. We have to stop him,” she jerked her head towards Spider-Man, and her voice dropped to just barely above a whisper, “I figured out how, but I lost the activation switch. I already started the upload process into the system; as soon as it’s down, it just takes a push of a button to destroy the machine.” 

Robin dropped is voice low as well, “I think I found your activation switch,” he crouched low over himself, blocking Spider-Mans’ view, and pulled out the strange object that had fallen earlier. Doc Ocks’ eyes lit up with hope. 

“That’s it!” She exclaimed, perhaps a little too loudly. 

Growing impatient, Spider-Man struck Robin’s shield, sending cracks skittering across it’s surface. “Dragging young hero’s into your battles, Doc? I think this is a new low for you.” 

Robin winced sharply, a dull ache forming between his eyes as he struggled to maintain the shields. “How long,” he whispered, pocketing the activation switch.

”Five minutes, maybe less. When the button flashes green you’ll know.” Doc answered softly, staggering to her feet. She took a moment to steady herself, then stood tall, her tech-tentacle arms whirring to life around her. Louder, she exclaimed, “Leave the kid out of this, Spider-Man.”

Robin back up behind Doc Ock, wincing when Spider-Man assaulted his shields again. The ache in his head worsened; he quickly scanned the area, and found a catwalk that lead directly towards what looked like some sort of access port, just a stones’ throw away from what most be viewing windows. He’d have to climb up and over, but it was manageable, and more importantly, faster than trying to climb back down. 

He dropped the shields and booked it, the noise of the ensuing fight rising up behind him. Up and up he climbed, skittering away from the fighting. However, when he actually reached what he thought was a way out, it was sealed up tight. 

A sudden lull in noise had Robin turning back around towards the battle below. Doc Ock wasn’t faring very well... she was slow to dodge and her attacks were clumsy. She was injured, though from this distance Robin wasn’t sure where or how. She had likely been hurting before he’d showed up. 

From this far away, he couldn’t hear what they were saying, but he saw the moment Doc Ock faltered and fell, and Spider-Man’s retaliation against her. Kicking the defenseless hero hard in the stomach, the red speckling her lips. The villain grabbed hold of, pinning her down and ripping the mechanical tentacles out one by one and throwing them over the railing. 

And still, Doc Ock fought him, struggling and spitting out defiance all the way. But she wasn’t strong enough to fend him off without her tentacles, and all her resistance didn’t save her when Spider-Man grabbed her up and— and—

Robin stared, shocked, as Spider-Man threw Doc Ock, his hero, over the cat-walk. His eyes followed her, down, down, down, wincing shut as she crashed into the bottom of the machine, far, far below. He looked again, an awful choked feeling rise up from his stomach and into his throat, looking over her from so far away. 

There wasn’t any way for her to have survived a fall of this kind, especially so if she had been injured beforehand. There wasn’t any time to reach her, call for medical services, there was-there was nothing he could do. she was dead. 

Robin should have sat tight and not drawn attention to himself. He should have waited it out, activated the button, and gotten help later. 

Instead, he found himself at the edge of the catwalk, screaming in fury and grief at the webbed super-villain, tears pricking his eyes and pain pricking his heart.

A slough of nasty words and curses left his mouth, things that would have made him curl up on himself in shame normally, but now there was only fury.

Fury that quickly twisted itself into panic when Spider-Man started swinging his way towards him. His words sputtering out, Robin looked around for some form of escape—there was none, none that was immediately accessible.

There were catwalks below them... a fair way down, but it was his only chance at this point. Spider-Man reached the catwalk just as Robin hefted himself over the edge and dropped like a stone. 

The ache in his head twisted into a knife in his temples, but he managed to create a purple shield to land upon nearly ten feet down. 

He took a breath, sucking it in and releasing it, then lunged for the nearest catwalk, another fifteen feet down. He rolled with the impact and sprung back to his feet, sprinting further away. He pulled out the activation switch and checked it; green! He perked up, and slowed, moving to flick open the tab. 

The villain had caught him before Robin could shut it all down, dragging the teen back with a strand of webbing, and was now tossing him around like a rag doll. But he hadn’t killed him. Just... tossed him around, spouting on about why Robin shouldn’t have done what he’d done, why Robin would have benefited working with him, and blah-blah-blah. 

It was a rather chilling realization, that he was being toyed with, a mouse to Spider-Mans cat. Crashing into the ground for the umpteenth time, Robin didn’t immediately rise. Bloodied and bruised, he rested his eyes for but a moment, not even listening as Spider-Man continued his spiel. 

Worse still, he had misplaced the small activation switch when Spider-Man attacked him. He didn’t know what it would actually do, but pressing it would, supposedly, destroy the Collider and thwart Spider-Mans’ plans. 

He opened his eyes, blinking to try and clear the daze from his eyes, and his gaze zeroed in on something small moving towards him very quickly. It was a spider, but it didn’t look... exactly normal. Before he could figure out why it looked so odd, he was grabbed by the back of his shirt and hauled into the air. 

“Are you even listening to me?” Spider-Man demanded, chucking Robin away from him when the teen didn’t respond.

Robin crashed noisily against the metal walkway, one of many catwalks strewn throughout the Collider’s inside. Leftovers from the construction process, and deemed un-obstructive to... whatever the Collider was.

Dammit, he was getting nowhere with this; he wasn’t strong enough to take Spider-Man out. Even with his magic, which was running way too low. He grit his teeth, gut roiling with a nauseating combination of guilt-terror-grief-fury, remembering the final words of his hero, and his own internal promise to stop this spider-themed madman before everything was destroyed.

Looking up slightly, he spotted the activation switch further down the walkway, but he dropped his head down a moment later, inklings of shame creeping up on him. He wasn’t strong enough, or fast enough, his magic was no longer viable, which left just one thing he could think to try...

Forcing his aching body to flip over so he was on his back, he stared the villain down and spat out, “What does this stupid, ‘ _colander’_ do anyway?” He let his gaze slip down towards his own chest, away from Spider-Man, and tinted the anger in his voice and face with enough resignation to sell his next words,

”You’re going to kill me anyway, so why not just tell me what I died trying to stop?” 

His ploy worked. Spider-Man started his spiel, gesturing widely, “The Collider is an ingenious device that can tear through the fabric of our reality and then into others, granting the used to travel through other dimensions... or bring things from other dimensions to us.

”That’s just the layman’s terms at least; I don’t expect you to understand the science behind it all.”

Okay, rude. But this information was no less terrifying to consider. This machine really could destroy everything...

”But so far, things are going nicely. Within the year, I’ll be able to activate it safely and access a different reality entirely. One where... certain events did not occur.“ Spider-Man paused, staring at Robin strangely. “And what about you?” 

Robin was staring at him in shock, wondering what kind of fresh hell he’d just entered. Tear through to other dimensions? Dimensions that held alternate realities? Like what?! Like an alternate reality where the dominant race on the planet was dogs or something like that? Or—

Wait, he’d been spoken to, “What?” 

“Isn’t there anything you wish was different?” Spider-Man asked, strangely gentle.

Robin went still, bracing himself for some form of attack or retaliation. Violence followed by such a tone never lead anywhere good. But... where had this come from? If he were to take this at face value, he’d say Spider-Man... cared for him, or was concerned for him. Which was just... no, big no there. There was nothing but lies in this villainous man.

“Doesn’t everyone?” Robin answered, struggling to keep calm despite his sudden unease. “But you can’t change the past. It’s impossible.”

His dismissive tone seemed to set something off in the villain. In an instant, Spider-Man was pinning him to the ground, hands wrapped around his throat. It happened so fast that Robins’ head was spinning—though that might have been the concussion talking.

Robin started struggling, clawing at the hands constricting his throat and kicking violently at Spider-Mans’ stomach, but to no avail. The villain was screaming in his face, but he couldn’t make out the words. His vision was darkening when, suddenly, the grip on his throat loosened and pressure shifted onto his shoulders.

Robin gasped for air and coughed sharply, but Spider-Man was still pinning him down against the catwalk. The teen tried to follow his gaze, and saw something skittering across the catwalk’s metal. Spider-Man scooped it up before Robin could get a good look, and the villain dropped it onto the teen. 

“What the fuck—“ he coughed again, voice still hoarse. 

“Maybe you’ll change your tune if you go through what I’ve gone through. Walk a mile in another’s shoes, you know kid?” Spider-Man replies, far too reasonable and calm out of nowhere. 

Robin began to struggle, feeling a sharp stinging sensation against his collarbone, like a bug bite. “The fuck are you—“ 

”Language~!” The villain interrupts, rising to his feet. 

Without missing a beat, Robin strikes out hard with one booted foot against the villains crouch, and scrambles to his feet immediately afterwards himself. Rather than continue attacking, he sprinted towards the end of the catwalk, forcing his aching body to move. He only really had one shot at this... and if he failed, well, that was the end of it. 

As he went, his hands roved over his neck and chest, finding the eight-legged culprit and flinging it away without a second thought. Approaching the end of the walkway, he murmured under his breath,

“Com’on, com’on! Just a little further—“

His words are cut off when something made impact against his leg, sticking it to the catwalk. His whole body catapulted forward due to momentum, and he crashed bodily into the catwalk. Dazed, he reached out and grabbed for the activation switch before curling inwards on himself, protecting it with his whole body. 

Spider-Man grabbed ahold of him by his throat and hauled him up, ignoring the teens sputtering and gasping as he snarled at him, 

“You think you’re so smart, huh? Think I won’t throw you off this like I did her? Why don’t I just snap your neck right here you little twat—“ 

A shockwave shook the very air around them, sending the catwalk swinging as energy sparked and a brilliant light erupted from the center of the Collider. Spider-Man’s grip loosened and Robin struggled his way to freedom as the villain stared at the light, stunned. 

During Spider-Mans screaming fit, Robin had managed to flick the tab open and press down on the button. The teen had not a single clue what was happening, only that he needed to get out of here. But prying the webbing off was proving difficult, especially with how the world was spinning in front of him. Or was the catwalk still swaying? He couldn’t tell. 

“—you!” A hand grabbed him by the front of his coat and hauled him up, the webbing tearing free with a _pop_ from his hip and blinding pain that knocked out his senses. 

Robin blinked and blinked, tears in his eyes, and managed to focus on Spider-Man’s face for but a moment before he was suddenly falling, falling, falling...

There was a strange tingling, warm-cold over his whole body, and then strands and connecting webs, a kaleidoscope of colors and stars flashing before him... then, nothing, darkness wrapping him up in a blanket and smothering all thoughts and pain from his mind, lulling him into unconsciousness.

**Author's Note:**

> I recently watched the film, and was greatly inspired. One of the first works I dug up was by _HopelesslyLost_ , who’s story “Burning Matches” I’m linking here. There’s was the fuel to the fire that spurred me on to write my own piece for this world. 
> 
> Thank you all for reading this far! Kudos are love and comments are inspiration, and inspiration writes the story!


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